The Beatles’ ‘Now And Then’ on track to become 18th Number One single
The Beatles‘ “final” song, ‘Now And Then‘, is on track to become the band’s 18th Number One single.
‘Now And Then’ – the last single to feature all four original members – came out last Thursday (November 2), with a Peter Jackson-directed music video featuring newly unearthed footage of the members arriving the next day.
The track debuted at number 42 in the UK last week – based on just 10 hours of sales – and is already outselling the top five, according to Official Charts. But it’s now expected to climb to Number One when Friday’s (November 10) Official Singles Chart is announced.
It could also mean the band’s first chart-topping single in 54 years, with the last being 1969’s ‘The Ballad Of John And Yoko’.
The track came to light thanks to a demo tape recorded by late bandmate John Lennon, completed by Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr along with the help of AI which lifted the songwriter’s vocals off the initial recording.
The project was first teased by McCartney back in June when he confirmed that he was working on a new track with the drummer, which would serve as the “final” song of the band’s discography.
Starr recently shared that working on the single was “like having John Lennon back”.
Jackson’s visual accompaniment also includes archived footage of the Fab Four. In a press release shared earlier this week, the filmmaker detailed his initial reluctance to take on the project, stating that he found the “collection of anxieties almost too overwhelming to deal with.”
Jackson also enlisted help from John Lennon’s son Sean and George Harrison’s wife Olivia, who each provided him with “some great unseen home movie footage”.
A short film was also broadcast on The One Show and the band’s YouTube Channel last week, which documented the history behind the track and how it came together.
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Hollie Geraghty
NME
